Your strategic vision is a concept of your company's future that you can use to shape your business strategy. Vision statements are useful for any company, particularly for steering small or new businesses in the right direction. Having a vision won't help much, however, if you don't develop a plan for making the vision real.

Developing a Vision

Your vision statement spells out what you imagine your company becoming: your future growth, the caliber of your employees and your corporate values. Visions should be long-term, ambitious goals. Examples could be: to become one of the top three firms in the industry, to overtake the current industry leader or to implement green technology into all of your manufacturing. It's OK to have a vision that you're not certain you'll achieve, but it must be at least possible for your company to achieve it.

Current Status

Your strategic vision gives your company its destination, but it's your strategic plan that maps out how to get there. To draw up the map, you need to know where you're starting from. If you want to rank among the top three website design companies in your state and you're currently ranked 20th, for instance, you need a plan to help you grow. If you build drab websites and your vision is to win awards for graphics work, your plan should emphasize improving your design skills.

Strategic Plan

Once you know where you are, where you're going and where you need to improve, start work on your plan. A good strategic plan includes specific, short-term goals covering all the areas that need improving in order for you to attain your vision. The goals must be measurable and concrete: "sell more items" is too broad; "increase repeat business by 50 percent in six months" is a better goal. Your strategic plan should delegate responsibility for each goal to a specific individual at your company.

Measurement

Assigning responsibility for your plan doesn't mean you then can put it out of mind. You need to establish milestones along the path to your vision, steps that your employees have to achieve by a set deadline. If you or your staff miss a milestone, review the company's progress and find out what went wrong. Even if everything's moving smoothly, review your plan and your vision on a regular basis. Changes in your environment, such as a new competitor, may force you to revise your vision. Changes in technology or staff may require you change your plan.

About the Author

Author of two film reference books, "Cyborgs, Santa Claus and Satan" and "The Wizard of Oz Catalog." Published in Air & Space, Backpacker, Newsweek, The Writer, and multiple trade journals (can fax samples if requested, don't have them available digitally)